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Wednesday, November 02, 2011

Thoughts On Hybrid Changes II - Blaster Battleships

One thing that was brought up in response to my post yesterday about the sniper HACs is that ships should not all be equal in every role for every faction, and in that regard I agree. The goal should not be parity but be competitiveness. The problem currently as it stands is that rail ships are never a realistic option in sniping configurations due to the problems of high fitting reqs, anemic damage, low alpha, etc and if these are addressed in a reasonable fashion than maybe Gallente/Caldarthei the hybitrd ships can be considered in some roles where their advantages can be useful.

Anyway, on to battleships.

There are four tech I battleships with bonuses for hybrid weapons but the Dominix has never been considered a solely hybrid platform due to its drone capabilities, so we're going to ignore it today. Instead we'll concentrate on the tier 2 Megathron and tier 3 Hyperion and Rokh battleships.u

Current State

First we are going to assume a standard role and similar setup of best tech II blasters (Neutron Blaster Cannon IIs) and three tech II damage mods. We will not discount drones in our analysis but they will not be included in the DPS numbers. We will not compare tanking in this exercise as our purpose is more to measure the effects of the proposed changes. For comparision purposes, the Amarr will put forth a similar pulse Abaddon and the Minmatar will present an autocannon Maelstrom .the

Ship with
faction ammo

Range

Falloff

DPS

Alpha

Tracking
(radians/sec)

Tracking (m/s at
optimal)

Tracking (m/s at
optimal+falloff)

Tracking (m/s at
10 km)

Megathron

4.5

13

935

4054

0.07442

335

1,302

744

Hyperion

4.5

13

1322

4633

0.05412

244

947

541

Rokh

6.8

13

1013

3707

0.05412

368

1,072

541

Abaddon

15

10

916

3971

0.04219

633

1,055

422

Maelstrom

3

24

878

2854

0.054

162

1,458

540

Ship with Tech
II ammo

Range

Falloff

DPS

Alpha

Tracking
(radians/sec)

Tracking (m/s at
optimal)

Tracking (m/s at
optimal+falloff)

Tracking (m/s at 20
km)

Megathron

11

16

745

3231

0.05582

614

1,507

1,116

Hyperion

11

cy by

1105

3693

0.04059

446

1,096

812

Rokh

17

16

840

2954

0.04059

690

1,339

812

Abaddon

45

10

730

3165

0.03164

1,424

1,740

633

Maelstrom

6

36

700

2275

0.0405

243

1,701

810

So, what do those numbers mean? Well, the tracking is the big thing with blasters and the reason why is this: at optimal range with highest damage ammo a battleship sized target with just an afterburner or a MWD with one regular web will move too fast in transversal speed for your weapons to hit it. At optimal plus falloff you have better tracking transversal but fighting in falloff means your hits are missing 50% of the time anyways.

The Abaddon with its big optimal range with Imperial Multifrequency means its lower tracking number is not as much as a problem unless the enemy closes range, while the Maelstrom's big falloff range alleviates some pain (not to mention its ability to switch damage types and not use capacitor).

When we looks at Tech II ranged ammo, the situation is slightly better due to the boost in optimal range, but you still need a web or two to bring target's speed down in order to be able to track them. For an example, a Maelstrom with a Tech II MWD moves 835 meters/sec so that at 20 km the Rokh and Hyperion will have trouble tracking it (as well as fighting in falloff).

So what do the numbers look like with a 20% boost to tracking? Well, assuming my math is correct we get the following numbers:

Ship with faction
ammo

Range

Falloff

DPS

Alpha

Tracking (radians/sec)

Tracking (m/s at optimal)

Tracking (m/s at optimal+falloff)

Tracking (m/s at 10 km)

Megathron

4.5

13

935

4054

0.089304

402

1,563

893

Hyperion

4.5

13

1322

4633

0.064944

292

1,137

649

Rokh

6.8

13

1013

3707

0.064944

442

1,286

649

Abaddon

15

10

916

3971

0.04219

633

1,055

422

Maelstrom

3

24

878

2854

0.054

162

1,458

540

Ship with Tech II ammo

Range

Falloff

DPS

Alpha

Tracking (radians/sec)

Tracking (m/s at optimal)

Tracking (m/s at optimal+falloff)

Tracking (m/s at 20 km)

Megathron

11

16

745

3231

0.066984

737

1,809

1,340

Hyperion

11

16

1105

3693

0.048708

536

1,315

974

Rokh

17

16

840

2954

0.048708

828

1,607

974

Abaddon

45

10

730

3165

0.03164

1,424

1,740

633

Maelstrom

6

36

700

2275

0.0405

243

1,701

810

What the impact looks to be is that the blaster battleships, especially the Megathron, will have a better chance at tracking other battleships, but will probably still need webs on target bring its transversal speed down to the large blaster cannons ability to track.
So now the question is how much impact the agility and base speed improvement will have on the three vessels and if that will allow the short ranged blaster ships to get in range more easily.

Although switchable damage types can be an advantage, it only really helps if you load the right ammo prior to a fight. If you get jumped by a shield ship and you had fusion loaded you are generally going to be screwed.

The signature of a target is used to compare with the singature resolution of the weapon. As far as I understand it, tracking is not impacted by signature of the target but I will double check my assertion today or tomorrow.

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